


oh, to see what it means to be free

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Past Domestic Violence, Stark family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(of the shackles and the dreams)<br/>Sansa turns to alcohol after Joffrey dies as a means of coping, but in seeking such an escape she finds something so much better. 'She tries the name out on her tongue, where she can still taste the residue of bubbly lemon soda. It’s a nice name, and he probably gets called Will by people close to him. She’s always rather liked Will as a nickname, but she supposes it would be rude to be so cordial with a man she hardly knows.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh, to see what it means to be free

Joffrey is dead. Joffrey is dead. _Joffrey is dead_.

Sansa finds herself repeating this phrase three times every morning when she awakes, and once again just before she goes to sleep, hoping that repeated confirmation of the fact will somehow shield her from her nightmares. Joffrey is dead, has been for over six months now, and yet he still somehow manages to haunt her. His wheezing, bloodshot face is more familiar to her than her own, and she's so very tired. 

The bruises that so often decorated her skin, testaments of his so-called 'love', have long since healed, but the jagged 'J' he carved into the tender skin of her palm, a knee firmly planted in her stomach to ensure she stopped struggling, still remains. The scar is a harsh contrast against her pale skin, and she thinks it shall never truly fade. She knows it will forever be a part of her, a parting gift from Joffrey that shall always remind her of the cowering mess he made her become.

Joffrey is dead, dead, _dead_ , but Sansa is still terribly broken.

She is so broken she fears she may never be whole again, worries that she has shattered into a million tiny pieces no one shall ever be able to piece together.

Alcohol manages to offer more of a blissful respite from her memories and her fears and her worries than sleep does, so she often finds herself downing a glass or two. Vodka is her personal preference, mixed with a lemon soda so the spirit doesn't burn her throat, but she doesn't mind the taste of wine or cider. As long as it numbs her mind and lets her pretend that she doesn't look around corners to make sure Joffrey isn't following her (even though she _knows_ his corpse is rotting in the ground), that she doesn't make sure her front door is locked repeatedly before she leaves for work, she'll drink it.

Five dollar wine or a three-hundred dollar bottle of the finest vintage…it's all the same to her. Alcohol makes her feel like the Sansa she was before Joffrey came into her life, and she’ll drink anything and everything eagerly as she tries to claim back some of the girl she used to be.

She won't touch scotch though, will never order a scotch on the rocks from the bartender with the kind smile.

Scotch was always Joffrey's drink of choice, and she can still remember how the alcohol smelt on his breath when he leant forward to whisper threats into her ear, hand tight on her lower thigh and green eyes ablaze with fury. A few glasses of scotch, and Joffrey would be more than happy to hurt her, even if they were attending yet another of his family's extravagant functions. A blind eye would be turned to Joffrey's snarls and the grip he maintained on her person at all times, tight enough to leave finger-shaped purple bruises on her skin for days after. More often than not, she'd wanted to weep for the injustice of it all – but weeping would mean enraging Joffrey even more, and she couldn't risk that.

She wouldn't risk that, because she wasn't an idiot.  

Everyone had called her stupid, a stupid, _stupid_ girl, when she started to date Joffrey. His own mother had been more than happy to comment on how pathetic it was that Sansa would do literally anything to please her son, but she'd learnt quickly enough. Once she’d suffered Joffrey’s wrath more times than she wanted to ever remember, she'd begun to observe him. She watched him closely, and sooner rather than later she knew the tell-tale signs of incoming rage, knew that when Joffrey’s eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were flushed as red as her hair it was more than likely he'd lash out, and she'd be the target of his anger. 

She watched, she listened and she learnt, but Sansa had always known that the mere mention of her family would earn her a harsh backhand across the mouth. Asking Joffrey to intervene in his grandfather’s hatred against her family had earned her the first of what would be many beatings, and it was then, lying against the cold tiles of their kitchen, trying to remain still and silent so Joffrey did not hit her again, that she should have packed her bags and left. 

But, of course, she hadn’t. Perhaps it was because she truly believed him when he swore he would never do it again, or perhaps it was because she thought it was her fault, that the blame for her bruises rested solely on her for. Sansa had merely picked herself up off the floor, run herself a hot shower, and covered up her bruises as best she could, offering excuses to her mother for the ones that she inevitably missed.

And only a few weeks later when her mother was dead, there was no need to cover up or explain away the bruises that came when Joffrey delighted in hitting her, just as soon as her weeping annoyed him. 

And her weeping, something that should have been entirely justified seeing as half her family were dead, had always annoyed Joffrey.

Joffrey was dead, dead and buried, and she is alive, alive and _blissfully_ free of him…but in the end he'd still won.

The country still mourns for him six months on, for the darling boy who'd been heir to the Lannister advertisement moguls and the Baratheon investment corporation. Pictures of him smiling gently at the camera had decorated the front-page of every newspaper in the weeks following his death, pictures which showed him as a normal man, as a sweet and loving man. These pictures were accompanied by page-long articles which bemoaned the loss of such a great man, the loss of someone with such a promising future. Sansa had longed to anonymously send in pictures she'd taken of the ramifications of Joffrey's abuse, pictures of her bruises, her wounds... and perhaps even an audio clip of him screaming at her that she'd recorded purely by chance.

But the Lannisters controlled a large percentage of the print media, so she'd stayed silent, and the country mourned for their golden boy.

No one had mourned for Robb. No one had mourned for her mother. No one had mourned for her father. And no one will mourn for her, but she is alive, and Joffrey is dead, and that has to count for something.

 _It has to_.

\---

The sun has long since descended past the horizon when she slips into the bar, still clad in her work clothes. Petyr Baelish had been kind enough to offer her a job mere days after Joffrey died, claiming to be an old friend of her mother’s, and at the time she’d been desperate enough to reclaim her independence that she would have sought any means of employment. Petyr’s offer had been more than gratefully accepted, but as the months have passed, she finds herself becoming more and more uncomfortable in his presence.

She has qualifications, she has her family name, and she’s seriously considering that it might be time to seek out another form of employment.

Petyr is kind enough…but he is often _too_ kind, and after Joffrey she is more than wary of men and their own personal agendas.

But oddly enough, she thinks as she slips onto an empty bar stool, she isn’t wary when she comes here. A crowded bar should make her feel anxious, especially one which is as packed with drunken men as this one is, but for some reason she feels safe here – safer still with a bottle of mace in her bag and the self-defence classes Arya signed her up for halfway completed. Arya might be overseas in some Asian country or another, having fled the country when their father died and everything went so terribly wrong, but her younger sister will always be looking out for her. Sansa _knows_ that it should be the other way around, and so she's already made plans to visit Arya once she's saved up enough money, with full intentions of trying to persuade her to come home. Arya shouldn't be so far away, and neither should Jon. They should be together, especially now that the worst seems to be over. Mum might be dead, Dad might be dead, Robb might be dead, but they are still alive, and they are still a family.  

Joffrey is dead, and she is alive, and it is time for her to start living her life.

The bartender makes his way over to her once he spots her sitting at the end of the bar, a cloth casually slung over his shoulder and his glasses slipping down his nose. Not for the first time, she notices the limp in his left leg, but such a thing seemingly does not hinder his pace, for he is standing before her in a matter of seconds.

“Hello again,” he greets her, a finger pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He grins at her, and she cannot help but return the sentiment, the corners of her own lips turning up into a soft smile. 

Sansa has been coming here for weeks, and she still doesn't know his name, a fact Jeyne would berate her for, if her best friend wasn't missing. The loss of Jeyne is just another thing she can blame the Lannisters for, another gift they bestowed upon her. Jeyne wouldn't hesitate to ask the bartender his name, but Sansa's never been that brave. She's more than happy knowing that his eyes are kind and his voice has a gentle lilt to it that makes her think it would be wonderful to listen to him read aloud. Those two things are far more important to her than a name. 

“Hello,” she murmurs.

"Having the usual?” he questions, and she nods in lieu of a proper reply. He smiles once more, retrieving a glass with his free hand, the other by his side, and filling it with a shot of vodka. He places her drink down on the bar in front of her, the lemon soda he’d poured on top of the vodka still bubbling, and she curls her hand around the glass, lifting it to her mouth. It tastes like vodka, it tastes like the lemon soda she’d so often drunk as a child…but more importantly, it tastes like _freedom_. 

It tastes like happiness, and perhaps that it is why she drinks it eagerly, her hair falling loosely down her back and the smile on her lips real for the first time in months. The bartender merely laughs when she places an empty glass down in front of him, pouring her another without a second thought. She’s been here enough for him to know that she is anything but a lightweight – how could she be, with an older brother like Robb and a cousin like Jon?

He pours her another drink, and she accepts the glass gratefully. Their fingertips touch briefly as the exchange is made and she cannot help but shiver, an action to which the bartender arches an eyebrow in question at her.

Before she can speak however, before she can attempt to offer some excuse for her shiver that has nothing to do at all with his touch, the bartender’s attention is pulled away by the yelling of another patron, most likely far too inebriated to realise that shouting at someone is incredibly rude. The bartender takes it in stride however, rolling his eyes and shrugging at her.  

Just before he walks away however, he tells her, “Seeing as you’ve been coming here for weeks now, I figure you should know my name." He grins, and states, "I’m Willas."

Her brain barely has enough time to comprehend what he has just said before he’s gone from her sight, greeting the shouting patron with the same kind smile he’d only moments ago given her.

 _Willas_. She tries the name out on her tongue, where she can still taste the residue of bubbly lemon soda. It’s a nice name, and he probably gets called Will by people close to him. She’s always rather liked Will as a nickname, but she supposes it would be rude to be so cordial with a man she hardly knows.

Willas then, she thinks, and Sansa resolves herself to tell him her name when he comes to serve her next. It is only fair, seeing as he has told her his. Her mum didn't raise her to be impolite, and she is first and foremost her mother’s daughter. 

By the end of the night, Willas the bartender knows not only her name, but her telephone number as well. Later on, she shall swear she has no clue how he managed to charm that out of her, but most likely it is a combination of alcoholic drinks and kind smiles that push her to jot down her number on a stray napkin, Willas’ fingers curling almost protectively around it when she hands it to him. 

Once the bar has closed for the night, Willas comes to sit beside her. He rests an ornately decorated cane against the bar below him, and he confides in her that he recognised her almost straight away, having seen her picture in the papers all too frequently over the last few months. Willas tells her that he didn’t know whether to offer his sympathies to her or to say nothing at all, and by the time he worked up the courage to do the former, too much time had passed for his condolences to mean anything.

In return, her cheeks flushed from all the alcohol and Sansa entirely glad that tomorrow is the weekend, she tells him that she’s glad he didn’t not bother to offer his condolences, because she would have considered such words meaningless. She pushes up the sleeve of her blazer, turns her hand upside down to show him her scarred palm, and tearfully tells him that sometimes she cannot sleep for fear of Joffrey being there when she wakes. She is more candid with him than she has ever been with Arya, has ever been with anyone, about the entire ordeal, but there is something in his eyes that makes her long to share with him all her troubles.

His arms come to rest around her shaking form, and oddly she finds that she is not repulsed, not terrified, by his gentle touch. Willas decides, quite rightly, that she's had enough to drink as his hands smooth down her hair, and he calls her a cab, giving the driver stern instructions to take her straight home and wait until she’s safely inside before driving away.  

He is perhaps one the kindest men she’s ever encountered, so after he tells her, “I’ll call you first thing tomorrow, just to make sure you’re okay”, she isn’t that surprised when she's woken up by an unknown number ringing her phone at eight the next morning, Willas far too cheery for such an ungodly hour – and on a _weekend_ , too.

Willas is kind, and he is funny, and he is intelligent, and he is perhaps just the thing she needs after such much pain and turmoil.

\--- 

Sansa drinks vodka with lemon soda at her wedding, and when Willas grumbles about the quality of the beer, sounding just as pretentious about his alcohol as his sister Margie is about her clothes, she cannot contain the laughter that spills out of her mouth. Arya is sitting beside her, her hair short and messy around her face, Jon, Bran and Rickon are arguing about the merits of the newest Marvel movie instead of dancing, and Sansa is so very happy. 

Her husband, _her husband_ , playfully glares at her as she laughs but she merely grins back at him, the bubbles in her drink nothing compared to the joy she feels in her heart.

Joffrey is dead, but Sansa is alive, and she is happier than she ever imagined she could be.

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a bartender!AU and it spiralled into this? 
> 
> The whole 'J' on the palm thing is 100% inspired from the Outlander series - although Joffrey definitely had more malicious reasons behind doing it than Jamie and Claire did. Oh, and when I started writing this, I made my favourite alcohol drink Sansa's favourite drink, simply because I'm not very well educated in alcohol and whatnot...but when I read it over, I realised vodka with lemon soda was a perfect fit because Sansa loves lemoncakes whoops.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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